re: New Louisiana law aims to get taxes owed by online shoppers

So I bought a gift card for my wife in Louisiana. She uses it in Mississippi. She is taxed in MS. How does that work?

You know a local business that sells flamethrowers?

What a money hunt we’ve got here in LA.

We have the most nazi State in the country with more enforcement power granted to departments by our leadership bent on beating every nickel out of its citizens.

This regime needs to be tarred and feathered.

Alright, I will try to clear this up for you guys. What this is is called use or consumption tax. Sales taxes are destination based taxes so the end user is responsible for the tax at it's end destination. For sales tax there is a concept referred to as Nexus; an entity must have substantial physical presence to be forced to collect tax. Obviously online retailers don't have this so state created the use tax years and years ago. It's to "compensate" for the avoidance of sales tax. It's nothing new and yes you technically do owe it, though collection is somewhere about 2% for individuals.

To answer a couple of questions I saw in the thread. If you buy something in another state and pay sales tax on it the, no, you do not owe use tax. If you bought it tax free then you would owe the tax. You only pay tax one time where the item is deemed to be "used."

As for Amazon, this law is tricky and many states are doing it. As for the poster that said what if someone orders on my accpunt, who's responsible for the tax? That's a good question that companies are using. That and the expensive administrative burden that these companies that are required to even collect tax are going to have. Pretty much the State forced Amazon to do this or they were going to sue them so it would have been more expensive and tiresome than just mailing these letters. Don't feel like it's La's general incompetence though because quite a few states have done the same exact thing.

I'm on mobile so this post probably isn't the best, but I'm happy to answer any questions anyone may have and will give my email if anyone wants to get more info.

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We have the most nazi State in the country with more enforcement power granted to departments by our leadership bent on beating every nickel out of its citizens.

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John Fail Edwards won't be satisfied until he gets our entire check and gives us allowances for food and shelter.

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When you don't support local businesses you hurt your community

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Well I actually buy stuff online from Best buy because I don't want to deal with fighting traffic after work to go to the mall.

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Don't feel like it's La's general incompetence though because quite a few states have done the same exact thing.

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So "general incompetence" from out of state politicians legitimises "general incompetence" from our own.

I wouldn't call it "incompetence", however.

If there's one thing our politicians are competent at, is sucking money from the working class.

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Bob Dobalina about to make YUGE online purchases.

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Serious question: How would that work? For instance, I buy cigars online from North Carolina. Because my wife is a Baptist, I have them sent to a buddy’s house. Because I don’t want my actual name on the items, I ship them to his address under an assumed name. All of that, but because of the nature product (tobacco), they DO have my actual name/address on file. Are they now going to mail me a statement of my purchases? How much detail will they include?

What if I bought something in 2017 to give my wife for her birthday in 2018? I can remember my parents prebuying gifts for each other via LLBean and Eddie Bauer catalog mail order back in the day. They’d just have the item shipped to a friend’s house. Will the State of LA now ruin the surprise?

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What I'm saying is don't misconstrue this as a Louisiana thing.

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So "general incompetence" from out of state politicians legitimises "general incompetence" from our own.

...infers that some other states apply similar tactics.

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Use tax has been on the books for almost 30 years, and every state has the same exact law.

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As you implied in an earlier statement, not every state has a sales & use tax - there are five that do not. It's important that distinction is always noted.

Also, rates & implementation do differ in other states.
salestaxinstitute.com

If we cherry pick each states tax implementations to justify our own, as JBE tries to do, we will easily become the highest taxed state in the union with nothing to show for it.

If this "use" tax currently has historically less than 2% participation as some sources suggest, then a sudden rigorous enforcement of the law still amounts to a tax increase to most citizens of the state, regardless of when the law went into effect.

Most citizens would find some of these taxes more palatable, if the same innovative and aggressive manor was used to curtail wasteful spending as is used to collect taxes.